Illegal immigrant drop houses on rise in Inland area

Illegal immigrant drop houses on rise in Inland area

09:45 PM PST on Friday, February 11, 2011

By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise

Inland homes are becoming increasingly popular sites for illegal-immigrant drop houses, places where people smuggled across the border are held until family members can pay for their release, federal officials say.

The drop houses often bring violence to Inland neighborhoods. Two smugglers were shot to death last year in Moreno Valley. Last week, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested four men who threatened to kill or cut off the feet of an illegal immigrant being held captive in a dark room in a Rubidoux house unless his sister paid a $3,500 ransom.

Captives are sometimes kept in squalid surroundings. ICE agents found 37 illegal immigrants packed into a locked bedroom in a Riverside house in September 2010, lying on the floor without mattresses, stripped of their shoes so they couldn't run away and some deprived of food for days.

http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_drophouse12.c12bbc.html

[Posted by Catherine Macan]